Vegetarians can have barbecues too, you know.

In light of Kevni’s apparently embarrassing cock-up in India, I thought you might like to know that our vegetarian experiment is still going strong.

In fact, right now we’re eating a delicious vegetarian vindaloo, made with cauliflower, tomatoes and spinach, and accompanied by tasty roti bread and home-made raita (yoghurt, cucumber, cumin, coriander and mint from the garden).

We’ve occasionally lapsed – at other people’s houses, when stuck without other food options late at night – but rarely. More than two months later, it’s working out well.

I’m sorry, Nandos – it looks like we won’t be back, after all.

Joss may have thought Fox deserved another chance: it didn’t

Quick note to Fox: this is why I’m not watching your shows any more:

Fox has decided not to renew Joss Whedon’s sophomore series “Dollhouse” for a third season.

There’s no point watching a series that’s building to something on Fox, because they’ll just cancel it – no matter how excellent it is. Firefly. Sarah Connor Chronicles. And now Dollhouse. What’s the point of starting a story you know they’ll never finish?

What does Fox have against Summer Glau?

This time I didn’t bother. And I’m glad I didn’t.

I wonder how far they can push this particular audience before they lose them completely.

PS On the plus side, this almost certainly means more Dr Horrible.

This country is superior to all others because I was born in it

A bit of childish name-calling in the Thailand/Cambodia spat gives me an excuse for a discussion of patriotism in the region over at Asian Correspondent.

(Note: site still in the experimental stage. When it’s set up properly I’ll let you guys know.)

No, that’s what sentences are for

So… British police are preventing courts from dealing with people because it’d be too much work to prosecute, and now, at the other extreme, the Victorian Corrections Minister wants to jail people after they’ve served their sentences.

TOUGH new laws introduced to the Victorian parliament will allow authorities to keep high-risk sex offenders in jail even after they have served their sentence.

Corrections Minister Bob Cameron said the new laws give courts the power to detain sex offenders for up to three years if they are deemed to present an unacceptable risk to the community.

If you wonder why I make such a big deal about the way the tabloid media misreport crime, this is why. Because we end up with politicians thinking that undoing the primacy of the courts in sentencing offenders, in weighing up the various factors – protection of the community, rehabilitation, deterrence, punishment – is somehow a good idea. That it’s somehow what the public actually wants.

This is the Supreme Court of Victoria. In it, people who commit serious crimes are sentenced by the Judges we appoint to do precisely that job, just as they have ever since our ancestors first realised it was a better system than mob lynchings.

Why would the public trust politicians and on-the-spot police justice to make these decisions instead of sentencing judges who have all the evidence in front of them?

Cameron’s proposal is an appalling idea. It springs from ignorance and spite, and cynical people pandering to (rather than correcting) that ignorance and spite. It won’t make anyone safer. Instead, it will result in injustice, and the waste of a good deal of public money fighting that injustice.

Yes.

We’ll build a massive eight-lane freeway, but a new rail line? Don’t be silly:

While the Brumby Government is willing to consider another freeway to the airport, a rail line from the CBD remains off the agenda.

On Monday, speaking at a transport conference, Roads Minister Tim Pallas said it was not a priority. ”It’s time we recognised the SkyBus service to Melbourne Airport is an enormously popular form of mass transit that successfully fulfils the need for public transport to the airport,” he said. ‘‘Should taxpayers devote a couple of billion dollars to a huge infrastructure project so Melbourne can boast of the dubious honour of an airport rail link?”

Yes.

Where’s our “Rail” Minister?

What is it about gays and lesbians that scares Rudd so much?

The nation’s “leader” won’t even rule out vetoing a lame civil ceremony law in the ACT. Even that might be too much for our homophobic PM:

KEVIN Rudd has not ruled out a veto of new laws to legalise civil ceremonies between same-sex couples in Canberra.

The ACT parliament yesterday passed laws allowing gay and lesbian couples to formalise civil partnerships through a legally-binding ceremony.

That’s going well beyond merely pandering to the homophobes because you’re gutless and are afraid that standing for principle might lose you the “Bible belt” (I don’t think it would, if you stood for ACTUAL principle, but anyway) – this is actively encouraging them.

At least the Greens are fighting against reasonless discrimination

Ah well, we’re a fortnight out from the Senate Inquiry report and the November 28 rally. Hopefully this will prod some people out of their apathy.

ELSEWHERE: Not to be outdone, the Liberal National Party in Queensland is busy trying to stop gay mums and dads.

UPDATE: Looks like misdirected fundies have been busy spamming MPs with form letters:

Nearly two in every three submissions considered so far are opposed to the Bill but the final count could change because of duplicate submissions.

Australian Marriage Equality, which is campaigning for gay and lesbian marriage, is concerned many of the submissions opposing the Bill were formula emails sent by Christian groups.

There’s a slight error there – they clearly meant “groups calling themselves Christian despite being obsessed with an issue the person they call “Christ” never spoke about”.

It you need our money just to fatten your own wallet, go right ahead

Adam Schwab in yesterday’s Crikey on revelations from the AFR’s annual executive salary review:

As usual, Australia’s leading bankers collected remuneration that would make ordinary workers shudder. Despite the Big Four banks being blessed with taxpayer monies in the form of deposit and wholesale funding guarantees, ANZ’s Mike Smith collected $13 million, CBA’s Ralph Norris $9 million and Westpac’s Gail Kelly $8.5 million.

Don’t you feel happy to have contributed?

Mike Smith (ANZ) says thank you.

Ralph Norris (CBA) says thank you.

Gail Kelly (Westpac) says thank you.

And Cameron Clyde (NAB) would say thank you but he’s too busy laughing at us.

What’s more, our largesse to the already ludicrously rich and powerful made them even less answerable to the market:

The taxpayer-funded bank assistance also helped destroy any competition from non-bank lenders in the mortgage market while the government continues to dawdle in restricting the banks’ ability to charge possibly illegal penalty fees. One would hope that Mike, Ralph, Gail and Cameron all chip in for a nice bottle of Bollinger for their good friends Kevin and Wayne this Christmas.

Seriously, why are both major parties incapable of demanding reform from these corrupt institutions before giving them taxpayers’ money?

And why do media organisations work so hard to direct our anger into other areas? (Note to anyone who’s used the word “elites” to describe lefties with blogs – may I introduce you to Mike, Ralph, Gail and Cameron?)

And Santa Claus calls for Christmas

Well, what did you expect him to say?

Chief prosecutor calls for harsher sentences

Advocating for harsher sentences is a major part of his job, after all.

Note: I’m not saying Rapke’s claim is “obvious” – frankly, I think it’s quite wrong and, worse, dangerous – but it’s fairly obvious that a professional advocate on the side of locking people up for longer would want us to, well, lock people up for longer.

What’s the next surprising Age news headline? Political Party calls for more people to vote for it?

Gutlessness and a pyrrhic victory

This is not good news:

The Government has decided not to change the Australian regulatory regime for books introduced by the previous Labor government.

Absolute gutlessness. A clear loss for Australians, who will now continue to be discriminated against by local publishers, just because a self-interested lobby group had the ear of enough ALP backbenchers to have their monopoly reinforced. (That lobby group is crowing.)

But even the Government concedes it’s futile:

In the circumstances of intense competition from online books and e-books, the Government judged that changing the regulations governing book imports is unlikely to have any material effect on the availability of books in Australia.

If books cannot be made available in a timely fashion and at a competitive price, customers will opt for online sales and e-books.

The upshot of which will be Australian consumers continuing to abandon bricks and mortar bookselling. By the time the local industry realises what it’s done, it will be – as it was for the music, television and movie industries – far too late.

UPDATE: Guy Rundle, cheering the outcome:

The free trade/hayek/alcan foil hat nuts never acknowledged the real problem of remainders (saying that authors shouldn’t sign up to such contracts is ludicrous — no one offers non-remainder contracts).

Wait, what? We should screw over Australian consumers because US publishers refuse to pay Australian authors royalties on every copy sold? Why? How did this system (of arbitrarily declaring that for some books sold they didn’t have to pay the author) start up in the first place? Why the hell should we accede to this blackmail from the publishers?

Our kids’ rooms will be green

Nic Heath over at The Dawn Chorus on the ubiquitous custom of parents colour-coding their children according to gender:

Dressing a newborn in either pink or blue is not a benign social tradition. Like expecting a woman to change her name upon marriage, it is an unquestioned convention that is hugely symbolic – in this case of the enormous gulf between sex and gender, and the widespread indifference to this disparity. In contemporary society pink and blue each carry codes of behaviour that children comprehend at a very young age…

A girl in pink will be encouraged to be passive and appearance obsessed. She will have different opportunities to her brother in blue, and different expectations placed upon her. Despite her own personality, she will have been shaped by forces beyond her control all her life – without ever really exercising her choice.

It’s a good point. If these gender differences are innate, then why do we feel the need to impose them before the child has ever expressed any opinion on the subject?

You’re A GIRL, OK? You’ll bloody well learn to be stereotypically “feminine” before you can walk.

How else are you meant to tell your children apart?

I’m painting the nursery walls green.*

*Well, to be honest, probably off-white. But you know what I mean.